Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Defensive snobbery

... popular music was especially highly developed among [the Germans]. Nowhere in Europe did it come closer to what we should now call 'art' music. This closeness, while encouraging beneficial cultural exchanges, also drove 'serious' composers (as they were beginning to think of themselves) into a defensive snobbery. It is easy to adopt an attitude of benign condescension to a popular musician when he is a peasant bagpiper or blind hurdy-gurdy man; not quite so easy when he is a prosperous bandleader in the house next door.